I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £3,316,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1970, for Remuneration.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 51: Remuneration.
This is a very large Supplementary Estimate. It seems to indicate considerable lack of foresight in the preparation of the original Estimate. It also pinpoints the need for an incomes policy. If there can be, in one short financial period, a departure from an estimate for remuneration of £3.3 million, it certainly is indicative of no certainly as to what any period of 12 months is likely to bring. Does it mean that in relation to the Estimate for the coming year one must just look at it and say: "Well, it is the best estimate the Minister can make. Of course he will bring in a Supplementary Estimate later on"?
There have been many efforts at proper planning of Estimates and many undertakings by Ministers. I remember one of the Minister's predecessors some years ago being very vehement here in his assertion that "there will be no Supplementary Estimate of any kind this year". The words were scarcely spoken when the machines were busy printing the necessary Supplementary Estimates, and here we have again at the tail end of the year——
There will be none next year.
There it is again, the old song Ministers for Finance always sing. It is disturbing that one year is the same as another. Always at this time of the year there is the last minute effort at moving Supplementary Estimates. It just means that estimates are a joke. They do not mean anything and they will continue to mean very little until we can get some proper planning of incomes and different earnings.
That was the unanimous view of the last Dáil. A Fine Gael motion to that effect was agreed to by the Government. We wasted our time in moving it and the Government wasted their time in agreeing to it, because nothing has ever happened. The situation in relation to incomes is as much a jungle as ever it has been. This is symptomatic of what is taking place. I do not particularly blame the Minister. He cannot help it, but no one will believe his estimate for Civil Service remuneration over the next 12 months. How could one? No one knows what will happen. With galloping prices, with steep rises in the cost of living, with the next month bringing as bad a story as the last month, with no apparent probability of controlling the deflation of the value of our currency because of the inflationary situation, how could anyone say what incomes or remuneration will be necessary to maintain essential services for the next 12 months? This Supplementary Estimate is symptomatic of the Government's failure properly to control our economy and is symptomatic of the situation which has been allowed to develop, where we have unbridled, uncontrolled inflation. What is happening in this instance is something that, in the present circumstances, cannot be avoided and I do not see much hope in the next 12 months of the Minister's jocose statement coming true that there will be no need for Supplementary Estimates.
I commented last week on the various Supplementary Estimates which have come before this House. Today the Minister told us that it will cost something in the region of £40 million in Supplementary Estimates for this financial year. It makes one wonder what happened last year. Was it intended to have a mini-Budget later in the year which, in fact, did not materialise for reasons we all know, or was there underestimation to such an extent that the money was swallowed up? The Minister can come here on Budget day and say he has balanced his Budget despite the fact that an extra £40 million had to be found. I am interested to know which is the correct answer. If the latter is correct, it makes one wonder what is the point of having a Budget at all, and if the former is correct we are being doubly charged because in addition to paying the extra this year we shall have to pay a double load next year for the purpose of catching up.
I know that civil servants must be paid for doing their job. The Minister said at Budget time last year that the sum of £2 million would pay for the extra increases to all State servants but now we find that more than £3 million is required for civil servants alone. What was the basis of the Minister's original Estimate? I do not think we will get the answer to that until the Budget and I am sure we shall have that before the by-elections.
Last year I found it necessary to bring to the Minister's notice a practice of this House in regard to junior employees who felt they were not being treated fairly. The Minister agreed to have the matter attended to and did so very promptly. This year I find something else happening and perhaps the Minister might have the matter looked into——
There is very little I cannot do.
I know there is very little the Minister says he cannot do. However, I must give the Minister credit in that he usually attempts to right a wrong when it is brought to his attention. The present case concerns a person temporarily appointed to a job, left in the temporary employment but paid at the lower rate of his previous occupation. This practice appears to prevail in this House with regard to minor employments: it may be that nobody worries very much about a person who is in a minor post and does not realise that the difference in payment of £1 or 30/- a week means a lot to some people. I should be grateful if the Minister would give this matter as prompt attention as he gave to the matter I raised last year.
The other matter I wish to refer to is on the fringe of being within the discussion and I shall not labour the point. A sum of £14,200 is mentioned for the Office of the Minister for Justice. I know this is not a large sum when it is spread over the entire Department but I assume some of this money will be paid to district justices. Recently I was shocked to read in a newspaper of a district justice who was trying two persons——
District justices are not included.
Remuneration is mentioned. The district justice was trying two people, one of whom had stolen some money in a post office and the other person was a sorter who had taken some postal packets. The district justice said that people employed in Sligo post office would have to take care because he would send them to jail if they came before him again. The Minister might ask his colleague, the Minister for Justice, to get the gentleman concerned to withdraw that remark. I shall not labour this point any further but I have mentioned it here because the Estimate under which this point might be raised will, because of the rush of business, probably not come before the House. In regard to the sum of £19,200 for prisons, does this apply to extra wages for staff of prisons or does it refer to extra staff? I understand a number of prisons are short-staffed and I am told that the staff are not well paid having regard to their type of work. The Minister might comment on this in his reply if he has any information on this matter.
I fully support the statement of Deputy O'Higgins. The Dáil is supposed to have certain rights over expenditure but the whole business is completely phoney; all this talk of Supplementary Estimates in the last three weeks is worthless. I should like to raise a technical point with the Minister. I do not think the title "Remuneration of Civil Servants ... £3,316,000" is correct. It would have been better had it been called "Remuneration of State Servants" for a serious enough reason. I do not think that the sum of £213,000 for Defence refers only to civil servants in the Department of Defence.
It is only the civil side.
It is not the Army?
Does it include industrial employees?
Yes.
I can only repeat a comment I made in the other House on another occasion, that the Department of Defence must be grossly over-staffed with civilians and I can prove it with bell, book and candle.
That may be, but will the Deputy now admit that the Supplementary Estimate is correctly entitled "Civil Servants"?
It merely shows how extraordinary it is that the three per cent increase should, in the case of the Department of Defence, amount to £213,000. This is completely ludicrous but I shall deal with the matter on the main Estimate for Defence.
We have machinery of conciliation and arbitration which is going on all the time and which deals with various problems in regard to remuneration as they arise. Invariably there is an improvement in remuneration and in any year, as conciliation and arbitration machinery works, there is bound to be extra expenditure involved as a result. I think this is a good thing——
We will not disagree with the Minister on that.
I do not accept any blame for the fact that there are increases as a result of the operation of the conciliation and arbitration machinery.
If it happens every year should it not be possible to estimate it?
We are living in a very inflationary situation and, in such a situation, estimating becomes increasingly difficult. The bulk of the Supplementary Estimate comes as a result of the agreement made last year. I want again to emphasise that I think that was an excellent development. On behalf of the Government I met the public service committee of Congress and we were able in a fairly short time to hammer out an agreement to be operated generally throughout the public service. That was a very useful development. As a result of that agreement I had to provide more money last year for the remuneration of civil servants than I had provided in the Budget but, as I said earlier, that was well worthwhile. It did cost the Exchequer more than we had provided for in the Budget, but it was a first-class agreement. The fact that we were able to hammer it out in the way we did was a very desirable innovation and I shall be very, very happy if we can repeat that.
Last year the Minister said he wanted to narrow the gap between lower paid and higher paid. This did not happen.
It happened in the public service.
Not in the end: the four per cent turned out to be more than £2 5s. as the Minister knows.
That was one aspect of the agreement. We agreed around the table that we would try to make the current year the year of the lower paid worker and the agreement reached sought to do that. I am not dwelling on that in particular at the moment; I am dwelling on the concept as a whole.
Does the Minister think it can be done again in the next financial year?
I would hope so. I would hope that we could meet the committee.
How soon? As soon as the Minister is ready?
I would very much like to meet them again and carry on from where we left off last year and come, if possible, to an amicable agreement about pay in the public service in the coming financial year. Pay in the public service is a very, very important part of the whole Budget now. It is the biggest single item. If we could, through goodwill on all sides, succeed in establishing a mechanism which we could call into play every year for the purpose of settling this particular matter that would be eminently desirable. If Deputy Tully will give me the details of the case he has in mind, I will see what I can do.
The Minister would not like to comment as to whether or not he will be able to cover these increases without having to budget for them next year.
I told the Deputy already there is practically nothing I cannot do.
At the moment I am very anxious to know if the Minister can do that.
A moment ago the Minister said he could not do anything.
Vote put and agreed to.